The Supreme Court’s immunity decision is having an effect. The special investigator is adjusting the indictment in the election trial against Trump.
Donald Trump’s former lawyers after a hearing at the Supreme Court on September 5, 2024 Photo: Jose Luis Magana/ap
Washington taz | Former US President Donald will only have to answer in court after the next election, if at all, for his attempt to prevent the handover of power to Joe Biden despite his election defeat four years ago. This was confirmed by the presiding judge in the case during a hearing in Washington on Thursday.
“We’re hardly sprinting toward the finish line here,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said jokingly during the hearing. She explained that given the many outstanding issues in the case, it would be “a futile exercise” to set a trial date at this point.
For Trump and his defenders, it is another small success in their tactic of delaying the criminal proceedings against the former president for as long as possible. In recent weeks, something like calm has even appeared in the legal issues. At the moment, the election campaign between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is dominating media events in the USA.
But special investigator Jack Smith is not giving up, even more than a year after the official indictment against Trump in the election fraud trial. Just last week, he filed a revised indictment against the 78-year-old. This continues to accuse the Republican of being part of a conspiracy that attempted to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 US election in his favor and triggered the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Charges adapted to immunity rules
The new indictment makes the same allegations and accusations as the original version. However, the focus of the indictment has been narrowed to meet the requirements imposed by the US Supreme Court, which ruled in July that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for official acts as president.
Special Counsel Smith and his team said in a statement that the new, reduced indictment attempts to “respect and implement the requirements of the Supreme Court.” The new indictment against the former president was confirmed by a grand jury that saw and examined the charges and evidence against Trump in this case for the first time.
In view of the Supreme Court decision, the new indictment lacks a section that accused the former president of abusing his authority over the Justice Department and national security agencies to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from taking office. Since, as president, he had the authority to use the Justice Department for government purposes, this accusation appears to fall under immunity.
“While the first indictment contained dozens of references to the Justice Department and Trump’s communications with people like Jeffrey Clark, (Editor’s note: a high-ranking official in the Justice Department who supported Trump’s lie about a stolen election) all of this was removed from the new indictment.
“So Jack Smith is trying to adapt the new indictment to the Supreme Court’s requirements and the president’s immunity so that the case cannot be dismissed on this ground,” said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani in an interview with taz.
Election campaign as an official act?
The revised indictment was officially filed on August 27. The court’s task now is to determine which charges fall under Trump’s presidential immunity and which do not. Only then could the case go to trial. This process could drag on for months, perhaps even years, explained law professor Daniel Richman.
Trump himself responded to the revised indictment with a post on Truth SocialIn it, he called the new charges an “act of desperation” and an “attempt to revive a ‘dead’ witch hunt.” He also claimed that the new charges “have all the problems of the old charges and should be dropped IMMEDIATELY.”
Rahmani believes that despite the recent amendments, there are still strong arguments in the case. “Historically, campaigning has always been seen as a personal act and not an official act. So now it’s about establishing where exactly the line is between campaigning and official acts,” Rahmani said.
In the end, however, all these efforts could be in vain. If Trump wins the election, he, as president, can order the Justice Department to stop the investigation into him.
